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24 December 2011

No holiday on the western calendar has the body of music devoted to it that Christmas does. Some of the greatest composers and lyricists who've ever lived had included Christmas music in their repertoires and the legacy they left is some of the most emotional music there is.

I have a bunch of favorite Christmas songs and carols, It would be impossible to pick a single favorite. One that rarely fails to bring a tear to my eye is In the Bleak Midwinter.

In the Bleak Midwinter was originally written as a poem by Christina Rossetti some time before 1872. The American Magazine Scribner's Monthly requested a Christmas poem from her and she delivered In the Bleak Midwinter.

In 1906, no less than Gustav Holst set it to music and a classic was born. Holst set his arrangement up for congregational singing and his version, the version here, is known as the Cranham. In 1909 Harold Edward Darke rearranged it to accommodate soloists and the Darke setting comes across as feeling more triumphal and is the version usually performed by full choirs

So now that it's Christmas, I want to wish all of you a merry one and I want to thank you for another great year at Kitchen and Residential Design.